What Would Steve Jobs Do? SUMO!

13 times. 13 times in 3 days, someone on stage @ #LeWeb11 referred to Steve Jobs. Not in the logical sense like “Steve did…” but in the more esoteric inquisitive way: “What Would Steve Do” or WWSD.

I think it is tragic. Jobs was a brilliant thinker, an entrepreneur, someone who would move mountains and seas to get his will done, his vision productized. If necessary, he would knock over some people who were in his way. Nothing and nobody would stand between him, and his vision… The very last thing Steve Jobs would ever have done is wasting precious energy and very costly time pondering on stage on what Jobs would do.

Wondering What Would Steve Do is about entrepreneurial a as buying a book “entrepreneurship for dummies”. Steve Jobs was Steven Jobs. He took his decisions in the context of his time, and stood by them as a man. He took some very unwise decisions, and even more decisions that proved to be excellent choices. His decisions however, will not drive your business very far, regardless of the countless WWSD presentations and countless official and officious memoires that are for sale right now.

I admired Jobs a lot. I’m reading his memoires. I will tell the future generations what a remarkable stubborn wise man he was at times. But I will not spend a minute more trying to figure out what Steve Would Have Done, and neither should you.

I know what Steve would have done hearing you asking what Steve would do. He would have hissed SUMO! And that, my friends, is Jobs’ shorthand for Shut Up And Move On.